Chapter 999: Kill the Bad People, Kill the Good People, and Even Kill Yourself?

The Wanli Reform could succeed because the Wanli Reform didn't even want the Confucian skin; it was all legalist bones and rebellious bones.

Confucianism talks about the laws of the Three Dynasties and the ancestral laws, while the Reform talks about advancing with the times and not blindly following the predecessors; Confucianism talks about family division being unfilial, so one should farm and study to pass on the family, but the Reform does not allow the appearance of large clans that threaten imperial power, either pushing for division or executing the whole family;

Confucianism wants the monarch to rule by doing nothing, while the Wanli Reform has an authoritarian figure as the absolute core;

Confucianism talks about "all things are inferior, only reading is high," while the Reform talks about military merit, titles, and land, talks about multiple promotion systems, talks about letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend; Confucianism talks about human feelings being greater than law and human rule being greater than rule of law, while the Reform talks about resolutely executing the policies that come out of the Wenhua Hall to the end, and talks about law being greater than human feelings.

Governor Ling Yunyi's son sold Governor Ling Yunyi's lifelong glory for 70,000 silver. Governor Ling Yunyi would rather resign than let the Emperor investigate to the end.

His Majesty the Emperor was already very lucky. Besides his own perseverance, with Zhang Juzheng and the massive Zhang Party in civil administration, Qi Jiguang in military affairs, a well-trained Capital Battalion, naval soldiers, and the thick profits from swallowing overseas, he had stumbled to the present.

If it were a time of changing dynasties, it could naturally be done more intensely, but for a reform that reforms the old and establishes the new, reaching this step was already the limit of the Great Ming imperial court framework.

The censors who went to Songjiang Prefecture harmed the students of Songjiang Prefecture miserably. At least from the perspective of public opinion, the method these few censors came up with—that students must undergo military training—was really difficult for the Great Ming literati to understand, but this decree was still executed after the Emperor approved it.

In the third month, these dozen or so censors returned to the capital and were blocked by the scholar-officials in front of the Censorate gate, asking why they betrayed them.

And the censors' answer was very interesting. The leading censor only replied: "We must make changes, otherwise the academy will only cultivate cowards, not warriors in the future."

In Tianma Academy, the child who was killed had been bullied for several months. When he was beaten to death, all the students of Tianma Academy were cowards. Not a single person stood up to protect him, and not a single person stood up to accuse them. Everyone chose to remain silent.

In the eyes of these imperial officials, there was no such thing as indifference in the world, nor was there selfishness of "not my business." Selfishness was just an excuse for one's own cowardice.

If the students cultivated by the academy were all such weak cowards, then what hope did the Great Ming have?

The censors didn't give too much explanation, and these scholar-officials didn't dare to run to the Huangji Gate to prostrate themselves and ask the Emperor to withdraw his order. This matter thus became a part of the Dinghai school system.

The reason the scholar-officials went to block the censors was mainly because they were worried that this decree would expand from Songjiang Prefecture to Shuntian Prefecture, and their children would also have to suffer this crime. Soon, the scholar-officials' worries were fulfilled.

Shuntian Prefecture and Songjiang Prefecture, as pilot areas for this decree, executed it together.

The playboys of the capital were all thrown into the Capital Battalion and severely drilled by the Great General and His Majesty the Emperor. The training regulations had already reduced the training volume of sharp soldiers by a lot, but these playboys were still trained to cry for their fathers and mothers.

Acts of cowardice will never be tolerated!

In fact, until the students of various schools in the capital were sent to the Capital Battalion, Zhu Yijun hadn't realized the seriousness of the problem. It wasn't until he took action himself and trained these students that he realized it was a bit late and should have been done long ago.

The future of the Great Ming, the suns at seven or eight o'clock, their degree of cowardice was not even as courageous as some old pedants.

Old pedants occasionally dared to contradict the Emperor, saying that His Majesty the Emperor was wise and martial, but doing so was still against the system. But these students were too weak. Facing injustice, they chose to accept it; facing unfairness, they chose to turn a blind eye; facing illegality, they chose to watch coldly.

Zhu Yijun issued an edict to increase training, increasing the training volume to the level of sharp soldiers, and increasing the first training to six months.

Such a big excitement in the capital, it was impossible for the red-haired barbarian Li Yashi not to know. On the 24th day of the third month, with the Emperor's permission, Li Yashi, as a translator for the Court of State Ceremonial, brought a bunch of barbarian envoys to the Great Ming's Capital Battalion and witnessed the training process of the Shuntian Prefecture students with his own eyes.

Returning to the Four Barbarian Halls, Li Yashi's mood could not be calmed for a long time. He pondered for a long time before starting to write his *Great Ming Travelogue*.

*Great Ming Travelogue* was Li Yashi's famous masterpiece, with an update time lasting seventeen years, and had become the most sought-after bestseller among Western nobles, because it contained the most real Great Ming.

Li Yashi spread out the pen, ink, paper, and inkstone, took out the steel pen bestowed by the Emperor, and pondered for a long time before starting to write. He wrote in Chinese first, then translated it into Latin to ensure his expression was correct. He wrote in the travelogue:

【The Emperor of Great Ming possesses an army that can be called holy warriors in terms of morality, and now, the supreme His Majesty the Emperor seems to have found a training method that turns waste into holy warriors.

This is more magical than the legendary alchemy, because these children who have undergone training have undergone fundamental changes.

Some students were just stubborn stones before undergoing tempering, but in just one month, they have turned into unpolished jade.

The seeds of the Eight Great Virtues have been planted in their hearts, taking root and sprouting, blooming and bearing fruit, which has become inevitable.

This six-month training will become a precious wealth of their lives. These experiences are rooted in their memories and will eventually gift them a life completely different from before.

Justice will prevail is never a lie.

You can imagine your superior changing from a grassroots officer who is rich in morality, firm in faith, rigid and serious, and possesses extremely high military literacy, into a rogue rascal with no morality, no bottom line, and no military literacy. The rapid decline in the army's combat effectiveness becomes inevitable.

Pursuing noble morality is never a mistake.

The noble His Majesty leads the Great Ming out of the quagmire and, through the Dinghai school system, puts forward higher pursuits for the Wanli Reform.

It is a pity that the current West cannot even establish a loose commercial alliance to counter the Great Ming's pressure on the ocean, let alone higher spiritual pursuits.

At this crossroads of historical choice, all you Westerners, do you want to frivolously and blindly choose to let your opponents decide your fate?

This is a great sorrow, but I have no way.】

Li Yashi finished today's diary. His travelogue was actually his diary of living in the Great Ming, and then carefully selected and compiled into a volume. He didn't know what was good about this thing; it was full of complaints.

But after the Great Ming bookstore printed his travelogue, as long as it arrived in the West, it would be snapped up. Lisbon, Portugal, even gave birth to a copying industry. The travelogues printed and issued by the Great Ming would be copied in large numbers in Lisbon's workshops, and the copied versions would flow to the entire West.

Even just relying on such a travelogue, he had been called a great writer, the terminator of the old religion, and the beginning of a brand-new era.

Because Li Yashi wrote many criticisms of religion in his travelogue, telling how China's royal power defeated divine power.

"The training method of the Capital Battalion has a magical ability to turn decay into magic, but this training method is not suitable for the West." Li Yashi was fifty-four years old. He was already a bit old and even unable to sail around the world again to return to his hometown.

He really wanted to bring this training method back to the West through words. The training method was completely public and written in the *Jixiao Xinshu*. Felipe originally intended to translate the *Jixiao Xinshu* into Latin, but he gave up, because "oranges grown in Huainan are oranges, and those grown in Huaibei are trifoliate oranges; the soil and water are different."

This training method grew on the land of the Great Ming. If you want to learn it, you can't learn it. Some paths eventually have to be walked by yourself and explored by yourself.

Li Yashi flipped through a miscellaneous report, summarized the content in the miscellaneous report, and wrote it in his travelogue. This miscellaneous report was an article published in *Min Bao*, mainly about the Hanlin Academy's research on oracle bone inscriptions.

The Shang King sacrificed Qiang people and livestock to the ancestors, asking if there would be disasters. In the early oracle bone inscriptions, they were all "Zhenren," that is, diviners asking the heavens, but later oracle bone inscriptions were all the Shang King himself divining. This change complemented the details of the complete victory of royal power.

In the middle and late Shang Dynasty, the King had controlled all the power of interpretation of divination.

Li Yashi wrote this process of change into the travelogue. He didn't know what kind of impact these things would have on the West, but he felt it was useful, so he wrote it on it.

Li Yashi also specially explained a misunderstanding here. When he first arrived in the Great Ming, he always felt a bit weird. The quality of the Great Ming's books was a bit too poor.

Up to this point, Li Yashi believed that the Great Ming did not have superb book-making technology, leading to the poor quality of the books.

The Great Ming's paper was very thin, and the Great Ming's ink was also very cheap, not Western oil ink.

This was completely a misunderstanding. The Great Ming had very exquisite books. All the *Yongle Dadian Simplified Edition* and *Journey to the West* printed by the Three Classics Factory were very exquisite, not to mention the *Ming Veritable Records* placed in the Imperial Archives, which were the best of the best.

After living in the Great Ming for so many years, Li Yashi finally figured out the reason for the poor quality of the Great Ming's books: for mass production.

The Great Ming's paper being made thin was an extremely high-end technology, which was deliberately done by craftsmen, because Great Ming printing was all printed on one side, not on the back, folded in the middle, and thread-bound into a book. Woodblock printing had a lower cost than movable type printing.

Western books could be printed on both sides, which had requirements for paper thickness. Doing so made the cost too expensive.

The reason the Great Ming wanted to lower the cost of books again and again, and lower the price of woodblocks and paper, was to lower the price of books, with the purpose of satisfying the universal demand of the Great Ming people for books.

There were too many readers in the Great Ming. In the capital, more than half of the people were literate, and in the entire Great Ming, more than 20% of the people were literate. Even the long hundred-chapter novels had become consumer goods for the common people.

There were many literate people, many readers, and a large demand for book consumption. Obviously, more exquisite and equally more expensive books could not be applied to the Great Ming's environment, while there were few literate people in the West, and those who read were nobles, so naturally, the more exquisite, the better.

And the Great Ming Emperor was still expanding the literacy rate through the Dinghai school system.

Li Yashi's travelogue was not particularly popular in the Great Ming, but the Great Ming Emperor liked to read his travelogue, mainly because Li Yashi could provide an "astonishment of friendly nations" error-correction mechanism. After all, as the Celestial Empire, the Great Ming was very concerned about face, and things that were pointed out by friendly nations would always have some changes.

Losing face inside the door was one thing, but if it was written into the travelogue by Li Yashi, I'm afraid it would lose face internationally.

Zhu Yijun finished reading Li Yashi's latest travelogue and always felt that Li Yashi had changed. He no longer made jokes. In fact, the Emperor knew very well that Li Yashi was not at the end of his wit and had no ability to make them up, but didn't dare to make them up. It wasn't that he was afraid of the Emperor's thunderous anger, but that he was afraid of the Emperor's ministers tearing him apart.

"He is getting more and more timid." Zhu Yijun closed the travelogue and shook his head.

Li Yashi didn't even dare to criticize the problems existing in the Great Ming now, but mainly focused on singing praises. He had already lost the courage of his youth.

"Your Majesty, the special envoy of Shah sent a memorial, which is the memorial of Salim, the crown prince of the Mughal Empire who studied in the Great Ming." Feng Bao placed another memorial in front of His Majesty.

Salim was Akbar's most promising son. Salim couldn't wait to succeed to the throne and launched a rebellion against Akbar. Akbar endured it and sent him to the Great Ming to study. After completing his studies, Akbar recalled Salim to continue as crown prince.

Salim often wrote letters to the Great Ming, and occasionally, as crown prince, presented memorials to His Majesty the Emperor, talking about some customs and human feelings of the Mughal Empire.

Akbar was recently planning to fight back to Afghanistan, and Salim received a mission to strike a sect of the Mughal Empire. This sect was called the Thuggee sect.

The Thuggee sect worshipped Kali, the wife of Shiva, the god of destruction, believing that acting according to Kali's will could maintain the balance of good and evil in the world.

The reason Salim wanted to exterminate this Thuggee sect was that the core religious concept of this sect was killing.

Its basic doctrine was: bad people must be killed to stop them from doing bad things; good people must be killed to prevent them from becoming bad people; and one must also kill oneself to be reincarnated as a Brahmin and become a Kshatriya.

"Even with the tolerance of the Mughal Empire, they themselves couldn't stand this Thuggee sect anymore, because in the two hundred years since the birth of this Thuggee sect, it had already created no less than two million deaths. These were all laborers planting cotton on plantations." Feng Bao explained why this Thuggee sect was an evil spirit.

Tolerance was already Feng Bao's most polite way of saying it. Not directly calling it a cesspit was already very respectful to the Mughal Empire.

A church with killing as its fundamental purpose was even more unimaginable than the Jile sect.

At least the Jile sect pursued pleasure, giving up all responsibilities and self-pleasure. Standing from an extremely self-centered perspective, one could still understand the logic. But this Thuggee sect, all its behavioral propositions, were centered around killing. The logic was incomprehensible.

"Not only killing, this Thuggee sect also eats people." Zhu Yijun looked at the memorial in front of him, his face pale.

In his view, this Thuggee sect was even more evil than the Jile sect. After killing people, this Thuggee sect also ate people, believing that eating people could increase magic power. When the magic power increased to a certain point, they would commit suicide and be reincarnated.

Bad people must be killed, good people must be killed, that's fine, but even oneself must be killed?

This sect was really too evil.

Salim received four years of education in the Great Ming. As crown prince, he really couldn't stand this Thuggee sect and sent troops to crusade against the Oudh region. In just one battle, he captured the sect leader, Behram.

This Behram personally murdered 931 victims in just ten years, not sparing men, women, old, or young. Salim hanged Behram's whole family in Oudh City, established himself in Oudh City, and launched a sweep of the entire Oudh region.

Zhu Yijun couldn't understand and was greatly shocked. He replied with more than a hundred words, congratulating Salim on his victory, and of course, also urged him to be careful of assassination attempts by extremist believers.

Although the Jile sect in Japan was still rampant, it already had signs of decline. From its inception to its peak, and then from its peak to its decline, it only maintained fifteen years of glory before it was widely opposed.

And according to Salim's description, this Thuggee sect had been rampant for a full two hundred years. It was only because Salim had the intention to make contributions for his succession that he cleaned up this evil spirit, otherwise it would have continued to be rampant.

This actually also proved that the influence of Great Ming culture on the surroundings still had positive effects. China's pioneering of the surroundings could indeed be called "civilization" and "royal transformation."

At least within the scope of Chinese cultural influence, this kind of evil spirit could not be brought to the table and could not arouse widespread identification.

Zhang Juzheng's party purge was still continuing, and it had a trend of becoming more and more intense. Sixteen high-ranking officials above the level of prefect, including Cai Guozhen, Right Administration Commissioner of Zhejiang, Duan Heyi, Left Administration Commissioner of Shandong, Liu Huishu, Prefect of Zhangde Prefecture in Henan, and Zhang Yangxing, Prefect of Changzhou Prefecture, were investigated and handled by the party purge presided over by Zhang Juzheng.

Zhang Juzheng's party purge is still continuing, and it has a trend of intensifying. Cai Guozhen, the Right Administration Commissioner of Zhejiang, Duan Heyi, the Left Assistant Administration Commissioner of Shandong, Liu Huishu, the Prefect of Zhangde in Henan, Zhang Yangxing, the Prefect of Changzhou, and other sixteen high-ranking officials above the prefect level were investigated and handled by the party purge presided over by Zhang Juzheng.

Among these, there were two cases that were most surprising.

Duan Heyi, Left Administration Commissioner of Shandong, was the only person in this party purge who was to be beheaded and displayed in public.

Duan Heyi was a native of Kunshan County, Suzhou Prefecture. In the first year of Wanli, he was the 18th in the Yingtian Prefecture provincial examination, 81st in the metropolitan examination, and a second-class Jinshi in the second year of Wanli. Under the recommendation of Li Le, he joined the Quanchu Association in the fifth year of Wanli. In the fifth year of Wanli, he was appointed as the Judge of Huizhou Prefecture, Guangdong. In the ninth year of Wanli, he served as the Prefect of Huizhou Prefecture. In the twelfth year of Wanli, he was transferred to Shandong to serve as the Vice Surveillance Commissioner of Shandong.

Originally, the wind of party purge didn't blow to Duan Heyi. Duan Heyi raised three concubines in Jinan Prefecture. Among them, one concubine was surnamed Liu. Her younger brother was a Juren and served as the Magistrate of Boping County, Shandong.

Zhang Juzheng wanted to purge the party. This news reached Jinan Prefecture, and this concubine Liu began to press Duan Heyi step by step.

Liu's bargaining chip was evidence of Duan Heyi's corruption, and Liu's demand was just to let Duan Heyi give her the status of a concubine. After all, Liu had given birth to two sons for Duan Heyi.

In order to prevent himself from being investigated, Duan Heyi agreed to Liu's request.

But as soon as Liu saw that Duan Heyi agreed, she immediately began to intensify her demands, asking Duan Heyi to arrange for her younger brother to go further.

Duan Heyi refused Liu's request on the grounds that the situation was tight. Liu took out the evidence of Duan Heyi's corruption again, which annoyed Duan Heyi. Duan Heyi instructed his servants to make Liu and her younger brother shut up forever.

Originally, Duan Heyi's intention was to change the murder scene to a suicide, and Duan Heyi was powerful in Shandong, so the characterization of this case was extremely simple.

Everything was ready, only the east wind was missing. Duan Heyi's subordinates did indeed murder Liu and her younger brother, but the method was: explode them in the street!

When this case reached the ears of the Emperor, all the court officials were shocked. They instructed others to directly blow the concubine to pieces in the busy street of the provincial capital.

The court officials knew these words separately, but when connected, for a time, they were all at a loss and confused. This case felt outrageous no matter how you looked at it, but it happened in broad daylight.

A total of sixteen catties of explosives exploded on the street of Jinan Prefecture. Liu and her younger brother were blown to death in the street. Eight sedan chair carriers had already known about it and avoided it in time, remaining unharmed, but one innocent commoner on the street was blown to death, and two were injured.

Duan Heyi's subordinates: The mission has been perfectly completed, Liu and her younger brother will shut up forever.

Duan Heyi:?

Can you say the subordinates were incompetent? These subordinates were too capable! Directly leaving no bones.

Because the nature was too bad, it must be severely punished. Thus, Duan Heyi became the only official in the party purge to be beheaded, and it was handled urgently.

Duan Heyi expressed annoyance and the idea of making people shut up. The private secretary frowned and wanted to share the worries for the master, but didn't want to take the blame. When instructing, the words were vague. The servant thought the master wanted to establish prestige, so naturally, the bigger the movement, the better.

This was indeed an accidental accident, caused by the subordinates' excessive execution, which had similarities with the Qingma Bridge case in Rongcheng County. But this accident was instructed by Duan Heyi, so he naturally had to die.

Another outrageous one was Zhang Yangxing, Prefect of Changzhou Prefecture. This person had a strange hobby, which was killing pigs.

Someone catered to his hobby and specially set up a pig farm for the Prefect in Changzhou Prefecture. And this Prefect didn't like killing small pigs; he liked killing big pigs. During the five years he served, he killed a total of 600 pigs, known as "Butcher Zhang."

Killing pigs was very troublesome. You have to catch, tie, kill, bleed, remove hair, disembowel, take out the offal, and organize all the meat. The whole process lasts about an hour. In order to kill pigs efficiently, Butcher Zhang invented an assembly line operation, reducing the pig-killing process to within two quarters of an hour.

And because he killed pigs quickly and well, this pig farm became the largest pig slaughterhouse in the five prefectures of Suzhou, Songjiang, Changzhou, Yangzhou, and Yingtian.

His hobby of killing pigs was related to his childhood experience. He was poor when he was a child and couldn't afford meat. He liked watching butchers kill pigs the most, always thinking that one day he could kill pigs himself, so he would have endless meat to eat.

Once power was in his hands, he realized his childhood dream.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard didn't believe it at first, so they specially found a pig, set up a field for him to kill, and on the spot, they were stunned!

Zhang Yangxing used only one pig-killing knife, sliding smoothly. In a quarter of an hour, he decomposed a pig of nearly two hundred catties into a salable state: fat meat, lean meat, ribs, bones, etc., and even the pig offal was sorted out. It was no better than "Pao Ding dismembering an ox."

His downfall was not because of killing pigs, but because he embezzled 70,000 taels of silver. Among them, about 40,000 taels were human interactions that couldn't be refused. The final punishment was only to be stripped of his official status. If there was a shortage of honest officials in the future, there was still a possibility of being re-employed.

But the pig-killing matter was talked about with great relish.

The Emperor didn't scold him too much for killing pigs. After all, the Emperor himself didn't attend to his proper duties. The Emperor felt that this Zhang Yangxing was not a bad person. When he was upset, he vented all his dissatisfaction on the pigs and didn't torment his subordinates.

These two cases could be said to be jaw-dropping and eye-opening!

What made Zhu Yijun relatively gratified was that during the whole process, there was no resistance to the investigation. After all, the movement caused by the last troop dispatch to Rongcheng was too big, making everyone subconsciously reject the choice of resistance.

While Zhang Juzheng was sharpening his blade inward, the dispute between Yingtian and Songjiang as auxiliary capitals entered a white-hot stage. The memorials from Yingtian Prefecture came one after another, expressing the strongest opposition to the Emperor's stay in Songjiang Prefecture.

And Songjiang Prefecture didn't respond at all, burying its head in repairing the Huangpu Imperial Palace. Even the Six Ministries' yamens were repaired, facilitating His Majesty to bring people to stay. Every memorial was reporting the progress of the project: how many rooms were repaired today, how many acres of lake were repaired tomorrow, and how many trees were to be planted the day after tomorrow.

Even the Songjiang Prefecture yamen specially built an Imperial Archives in the Imperial Palace, putting the *Yongle Dadian* and the exquisite copies into the stone palace of the Imperial Archives of the Imperial Palace.

What Shuntian Prefecture had, Songjiang Prefecture had to have, and it had to be better.

What Shuntian Prefecture has, Songjiang Prefecture must have, and it must be better.

As long as His Majesty arrived, no matter how many reasons Yingtian Prefecture gave, they couldn't change this established fact.

"No need to argue, it's Songjiang Prefecture." Zhu Yijun, sitting on the dragon throne, finished reading all the memorials from Yingtian Prefecture. These people spoke very reasonably, and the reasons were very sufficient, but Zhu Yijun still made the decision.

"We obey the decree." Zhang Juzheng and other court officials heard that the imperial will was decided, and after paying respects with the ministers, it was considered that this matter was completely settled.

Zhu Yijun said: "Everyone, I have good news. The treasury of Tonghe Palace has been built. The Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, the Dean of the Gewu Academy, the Commander of the Capital Battalion, and the Minister of Revenue each have one key. According to the system, when all four keys are present, the treasury will be opened to put in gold. The gold in Tonghe Palace will only enter, not exit."

"Starting from the 15th year of Wanli, over five years, the treasury of Tonghe Palace has stored 6 million taels of gold."

"There is also bad news. I plan to stop issuing banknotes for five years starting this year and withdraw all issued gold banknotes."

Grand Secretary Zhang Xueyan heard the first piece of news and was overjoyed. Hearing the second piece of news, hearing that no new banknotes would be issued, his face changed drastically. He wished he could immediately dismiss the Emperor!

Emperor, do you know what you are doing!

Zhang Xueyan immediately stepped out and bowed: "Your Majesty's benevolence is vast, your virtue is towering, you listen to all directions and manage ten thousand machines, doing everything yourself without slackening, saving the world and calming the people. I boldly ask, why stop issuing banknotes suddenly? The people are hungry and thirsty and suffer from money shortage. This is a major matter and a priority. I dare not hide it and seek the Emperor's favor. I beg Your Majesty to shine with wisdom and instruct on the opportunity."

"Look, you are anxious again. Listen to me first." Zhu Yijun didn't feel offended. As Minister of Revenue, Zhang Xueyan held the handle of the world's wealth. The matter of banknotes was an important means for the imperial court to supplement the lack of liquidity. Now that he suddenly said to stop issuing, and even stop for five years, Zhang Xueyan asking clearly was his duty.

The idea of stopping the issuance of banknotes was the result of Zhu Yijun's careful consideration. ===== CHAPTER 1000 =====

The idea of stopping the issuance of precious banknotes was the result of Zhu Yijun's careful consideration.